Worst Case Scenario (Voyager episode)
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| Star Trek: VOY episode | |
| "Worst Case Scenario" | |
 B'Elanna joins Chakotay's Maquis mutiny |
|
| Episode no. | 67 |
|---|---|
| Prod. code | 167 |
| Airdate | May 14, 1997 |
| Writer(s) | Kenneth Biller |
| Director | Alexander Singer |
| Guest star(s) | Martha Hackett as Seska |
| Year | 2373 |
| Stardate | 50953.4 |
| Episode chronology | |
| Previous | "Displaced" |
| Next | "Scorpion, Part I" |
Worst Case Scenario is an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, penultimate episode of the third season.
[edit] Teaser
It's the ultimate betrayal. Chakotay leads a mutiny and takes control of the ship.
[edit] Episode
B'Elanna Torres walks along a corridor, and meets up with Chakotay. In the turbolift he asks a series of probing questions regarding a dislike for Tuvok and Captain Janeway. Torres sees through the hints, and asks if there is going to be a mutiny. Chakotay says all the Maquis and 25 of the Starfleet people are in. He needs to know which side she's on. Janeway and Tom Paris leave in a shuttlecraft, giving Chakotay his first command of Voyager. Shortly after Janeway disembarks, the mutiny begins. Chakotay gives Ensign Kim an order, which Kim questions. Tuvok sternly tells Kim that he was given an order and to do as the commander told him, but Chakotay stuns Tuvok with phaser fire. Ensign Kim remains loyal to Janeway and fires, but is stunned by Torres. Reports come in from Jonas saying the engine room is secure. However, there is a resistance that has gathered in the mess hall. Chakotay askes Torres to join him.
Joined by Seska, who is armed with a phaser rifle, they take the resistors prisoner, except Neelix, who joins their side. They round up the rest of the crew, including Kes, and offer them the choice of joining the crew, or being beamed off the ship at the nearest planet. Tom Paris enters, and asks Torres what is going on. She freezes the program - the whole thing has been a holodeck simulation that engaged her so much she missed their lunch date. Tom decides to try it himself.
Tom, however, tells Chakotay he'll join the mutiny, but actually takes the side of the loyalists. He is captured and put in the brig. He's not terribly happy with the slow pace of the novel after spending two hours in the brig, but Tuvok tells him that they must be patient and wait for an opening to retake the ship.
Soon the scenario is the talk of the ship, with several crewmen running the program. Tom, bored with the time in the brig, decides to replay as a part of the mutiny team, after Captain Janeway and holo-Tom return with their shuttle, and, with some alien reinforcements, he starts to fight off their attempt to take Voyager. Suddenly the story ends.
Captain Janeway brings up the situation during a briefing and tells her senior staff to find the author. Tuvok admits to being the author, but says it was not a holo-novel, but a tactical training scenario for new security recruits. He worried about what might happen if the merge of the Maquis and Starfleet crews was not smooth, and wrote the training situation. However, as the two crews worked well, he abandoned the program. He suggests its contents might bring about the situation he feared, and suggests deleting the program. Janeway overrides him, saying it's just harmless fun now. Tom Paris volunteers to complete the story.
He finds a lot of the crew have their own ideas, but when he states his intentions to Tuvok, the Vulcan balks, saying it was not consistent with their characters. Eventually, the two reopen the file together and find they are now in a trap. Seska, before leaving Voyager, had discovered the program and wrote the ending she wanted. With the safety protocols off, Tom and Tuvok are forced to fend for themselves. A holographic Janeway tries to help them, but her phaser was set to overload and she dies. With Tom hurt, they go to the simulated sickbay in search of healing tools.
The Doctor is no help; in fact, he has been turned into a sadist. He does more damage, injecting Tom with a bit of nitric acid as the "proverbial salt in the wound", then roughly tossing them out of sickbay. The rest of the crew finds the scenario has locked out their transporters and energy controls. Janeway manages to assist the two trapped crewmen by providing a plasma extingisher, and also tries to reprogram the personality profiles of the simulation. The holographic Chakotay responds and agrees to spare their lives. The holographic Seska is less willing, and demands Tuvok give her the phaser he has. Tuvok agrees, but when she tries to murder him with it, it overloads, killing the holographic Seska. The scenario ends.
In the mess hall, Chakotay tells Tuvok that he can't wait for the next holonovel, as long as he is not the bad guy. In the end, Captain Janeway encourages the crew to develop their own entertainment as they may be out of Federation space for a long time. As shown by future episodes, Tom Paris takes it to heart, developing the Adventures of Captain Proton series, and in a possible future, being a successful holo-novel author.
